In addition to being less expensive and delivering feature parity, VMware alternatives must also provide high-performance migration out of the legacy platform. What sounds like a fast migration time—a couple of minutes per virtual machine (VM)—can actually cause significant outages. The impact of this slow migration is often overlooked during testing because the customer doesn’t migrate at an equal scale to their production environment.
Why Fast Migration is Critical
Most VMware Alternatives require that the VMware VM be powered off during the migration, and all require it for the final cut-over. As a result, seemingly fast migration times can result in substantial downtime when dealing with at-scale migrations. For example, a migration time of two minutes per VM might seem reasonable. However, when extrapolated to 100 VMs, it totals over three hours (200 minutes). For 1,000 VMs, this translates to over 33 hours (2,000 minutes) of potential downtime, which is simply unacceptable for most businesses. Even if migration is done ten VMs at a time, there is the potential for 10 outages of 20 minutes each. The prolonged migration time can lead to significant disruptions, affecting productivity, customer service, and revenue.
On August 15th VergeIO, we demonstrate, live the capability to migrate over 100 VMware VMs in less than five seconds. This high-performance VMware migration significantly reduces downtime, ensuring business continuity and minimizing operational impact. Because VergeOS’ integrated migration capability leverages the VMware backup API set and, therefore, also supports change block tracking, customers can make the final cutover with an absolute minimum of downtime.
IT Time Savings from High-Performance VMware Migration
High-performance VMware migration optimizes efficiency and resource use. Quick transitions free up IT personnel, allowing teams to focus on other critical tasks instead of lengthy migration processes. This efficiency saves time and reduces labor costs and resource usage.
Our solution, VergeOS, exemplifies this efficiency. By integrating the VMware migration function into a unified data center operating environment, VergeOS enables the rapid migration of VMs, optimizing the use of existing hardware and resources. IT can migrate VMs in seconds and spin up test environments in less than a minute. They will also find that the VergeOS interface is faster and more responsive than VMware vCenter.
Cost Savings with High-Performance VMware Migration
Extended migration periods often come with increased costs. Slow migration can lead to the need for additional hardware. Customers must typically acquire a complete suite of extra servers to be available for the duration of the migration process. High-performance VMware migration solutions like VergeIO’s can dramatically reduce these costs. Fast migrations and a flexible code base mean that VergeOS can utilize existing hardware, making “migrate-in-place” a reality.
Enhanced Testing and Performance Through High-Performance VMware Migration
Another critical factor is the ability to create test environments quickly. Slow migration processes can extend testing periods, potentially leading to incomplete or inadequate testing. This can result in unforeseen issues when the alternative platform goes live. High-performance VMware migration ensures that test environments can be created and validated quickly, allowing thorough compatibility and performance testing.
VergeOS facilitates this by enabling the rapid creation of multiple test environments thanks to its fast migration. Its Virtual Data Center technology enables multiple virtual test labs to be created of the same group of VMs or workloads to facilitate parallel testing. This capability ensures that businesses have confidence in the new environment’s performance and reliability.
Scalability and Reduced Risk with High-Performance VMware Migration
High-performance VMware migration is essential for scalability. As businesses grow, their IT infrastructure needs to scale accordingly. Slow migration processes can hinder this growth, leading to bottlenecks and delays. With VergeIO’s rapid migration capabilities, businesses can scale their infrastructure efficiently, migrating additional VMs as needed without significant downtime.
The Value of VergeOS Post-Migration
Once the migration to VergeOS is complete, businesses can immediately begin to realize several key benefits:
- Cost Efficiency: VergeOS reduces operational costs through optimized resource utilization, reduced infrastructure requirements, and a per-server licensing model. This efficiency allows organizations to allocate budgets and resources to other strategic initiatives.
- Enhanced Security: Post-migration, VergeOS continues to employ advanced encryption and security protocols to ensure data integrity and confidentiality, providing ongoing protection for sensitive information.
- Secure Multi-Tenancy: VergeOS supports secure multi-tenancy, enabling multiple customers or departments to share the same infrastructure while ensuring strict isolation and security for each tenant. This capability enhances resource utilization while maintaining robust security standards.
- Scalability: VergeOS supports dynamic scaling, allowing organizations to expand their virtual environments as needed easily. Nodes of different types can be added to the VergeOS instance, including compute-only or storage-only servers. This flexibility ensures that IT infrastructure can grow in line with business demands and that servers can run for years beyond their warranty.
- Simplified Management: VergeOS offers a user-friendly interface and comprehensive management tools, streamlining ongoing operations and making it easier for IT teams to manage and monitor virtual environments. Customers repeatedly tell us they can get more done in their day with VergeOS than they could under VMware.
- Improved Performance: Organizations benefit from VergeOS’ optimized performance, which enhances application speed and reliability. This results in a more responsive and efficient IT environment, contributing to overall operational excellence.
Conclusion
As Chris Mellor over at Blocks and Files said, “Several suppliers of alternative hypervisor systems,” so when considering a VMware alternative, the ability to migrate VMware VMs quickly and efficiently is a critical differentiator. High-performance migration reduces downtime, enhances efficiency, cuts costs, and ensures thorough testing. VergeIO’s solution, VergeOS, exemplifies these benefits, making it a compelling choice for businesses looking to transition from VMware. It offers not only a rapid transfer but also a more robust and complete solution capable of virtualizing the entire data center.
If you are interested in witnessing this high-performance VMware migration in action, we are hosting a webinar on August 15th, 2024, at 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT. The webinar will feature a live demonstration showcasing the migration of 100 VMware VMs in seconds, highlighting the significant advantages of our solution. Register now to see this rapid migration in action and learn more about how VergeIO can transform your IT infrastructure.
For more information about VergeIO and to see the press release detailing our latest achievements, visit VergeIO Simplifies VMware Migration.
